Sellers of wheelchairs, drugs and other medical supplies collected as much as $93 million in fraudulent Medicare claims based on prescriptions from doctors who actually were dead, some for 10 years or more, a congressional investigation has found.

Millions more dollars will continue to be at risk of waste and fraud each year in the billion-dollar government-run health program for the elderly and disabled unless Medicare officials address flaws that they've promised to fix since at least 2001, according to the probe.

The bipartisan report by the Senate Homeland Security investigations subcommittee, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, reviewed millions of reimbursement claims for medical equipment and supplies from 2000 through 2007. It found that Medicare paid out between $60.3 million to $92.8 million to medical suppliers even though they involved claims in which the prescribing doctor listed had been dead for at least 12 months.

In Florida, which has a high number of Medicare claims, more than $2 million alone was paid to medical suppliers from 2002 to 2007 for equipment such as oxygen machines, prosthetics and diabetic equipment that claimed to have prescriptions from 114 deceased doctors. As many as 484 claims totaling $544,789 were filed under an ID code for a single deceased doctor who had died in 1999.

and more at...
Probe: Dead Doctors Used In Medicare Scams, Congress Finds Medical Suppliers Bilked Medicare Of $93M Based On Prescriptions From Dead Docs - CBS News

Dead doctors prescribing medical supplies, I wonder how much of this fraud would be committed under a massive universal healthcare system? This is just another example of the government's efficiency. Now who's ready for a multi-trillion dollar healthcare system?

__________________
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Will Rogers

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel or envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

JFK

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. -- Mark Twain

There is just as much fraud in the private sector.

Does the private sector administrate taxpayer funded healthcare?

__________________
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Will Rogers

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel or envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

JFK

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. -- Mark Twain

They certainly do. It is the private sector that is ripping off Medicare in your example.

Link please?

__________________
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Will Rogers

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel or envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

JFK

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. -- Mark Twain

Sellers of wheelchairs, drugs and other medical supplies collected as much as $93 million in fraudulent Medicare claims based on prescriptions from doctors who actually were dead, some for 10 years or more, a congressional investigation has found.

Medicare aka Government: Somethings never change.



Bark Over Bite? | Insight on the News | Find Articles at BNET

The private sector didn't pay out the tax money the government did....

__________________
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Will Rogers

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel or envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

JFK

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. -- Mark Twain

so corrupted people in the private sector stole gov't money, and people are blaming the gov't here? seems to me the people who stole should be the ones getting blamed

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sealybobo thinks im a racist right winger. RGS thinks im a braindead liberal. I wonder which one I am?

the best view is from the middle

“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” Plato

“Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other” Oscar Ameringer

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. ... The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." James Madison

While government run healthcare would certianly be detrimental to Americans, one has to agree with the above. Generally we punish the theif, not the person the theif stole from.

__________________
It's time for another Ronny in the White House.

Both entities bear responsibility, I just don't want to see billions of US taxpayer's money wasted on fraud.

__________________
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Will Rogers

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel or envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

JFK

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. -- Mark Twain

Lock up the thieves and quit making it so damn easy for new ones to steal from system that proves itself incompetant--over and over and over.

__________________
"Some men eventually stumble over the truth but they usually pick themselves up and walk on as if nothing ever happened."
-Winston Churchill

"But though there is no difference in this respect between the best demagogue and the worst, both of them having to present their cases equally in terms of melodrama, there is all the difference in the world between the statesman who is humbugging the people into allowing him to do the will of God, in whatever disguise it may come to him, and one who is humbugging them into furthering his personal ambition and the commercial interests of the plutocrats who own the newspapers and support him on reciprocal terms."
-George Bernard Shaw

So you are going to refuse Medicare when you turn 65?

Yes when the government stops taking Medicare taxes from my paycheck...

__________________
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Will Rogers

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel or envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

JFK

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. -- Mark Twain

Good point, Kirk.